The domestic vacuum cleaner is the most common power cleaning tool used in households today. A conventional domestic vacuum cleaner provides a motor driven impeller which creates a suction airstream and draws or blows the airstream through a dirt collector such as an air permeable filter bag or a canister. Dirt and dust pass through the collector and are removed from the airstream, which then escapes into the environment. A typical domestic vacuum cleaner cannot vacuum a liquid, because liquid droplets entrained in the airflow would travel through and damage or destroy the impeller assembly and/or the collector.
Canister vacuum cleaners are available which are adapted to vacuum a liquid, often called "wet-vacuums", which provide a reservoir beneath the impeller assembly into which liquid entrained in the suction airstream is released. In such wet vacuum cleaners the impeller assembly and its associated electrical connections must be kept well away from both the high velocity airstream discharged from the suction intake and liquid collected in the reservoir, to ensure that the impeller assembly is completely isolated from any liquid. Except for these differences, wet vacuums tend to have all of the same components as a conventional canister vacuum cleaner and are to a large degree redundant in this respect.
Hand-held wet vacuums are also available, but they tend to be weak and ineffective because the battery-powered motors that they use are capable of generating only a very low pressure suction airstream, and they often utilize elaborate systems of baffles in order to maintain sufficient operating pressure while isolating the impeller from the suction intake and the reservoir to ensure that no water is drawn through the impeller assembly.
The present invention overcomes these disadvantages by providing a wet vacuum accessory for a domestic vacuum cleaner that separates liquid droplets from the suction airstream before the airstream is drawn into the vacuum cleaner intake hose. The invention provides a suction air intake passage defined between a pair of baffles, which discharges the suction airstream into a reservoir that is isolated from the airflow outlet from the body of the accessory by the baffles themselves. The reservoir is provided with a relatively large cross sectional area, which reduces the suction airstream velocity sufficiently to allow liquid entrained in the airstream to fall into the reservoir before the air is drawn out of the accessory body into the vacuum cleaner intake hose. In the preferred embodiment both the suction passage and the airflow outlet are located at the front end of the accessory, separated by the baffles that define the suction intake passage, and a hollow handle of the accessory is used as an extension to connect the vacuum cleaner intake hose to the airflow outlet.
The present invention thus provides an accessory for a vacuum cleaner for cleaning liquid, comprising means for creating a higher suction airstream velocity region comprising a suction intake passage having a suction inlet and a suction outlet, defined between a pair of baffles, a lower suction airstream velocity region contained within a body of the accessory comprising a reservoir in communication with the suction outlet, and an airflow outlet for attachment to a suction intake of the vacuum cleaner, for drawing the suction airstream out of the body of the accessory, whereby the airflow outlet is isolated from the suction outlet by the baffles such that the suction airstream must pass through the reservoir before egressing from the airflow outlet.